12/14/09

How to maximize your lens’ sharpness

It is a popular believe that kit lenses are not sharp & photo-worthy. But truth to be told, kit lenses’ quality has been increasing and their performance are way better than their predecessors! In fact, some of us are still not satisfied with the sharpness that we get from those expense lenses such as the Canon L lenses. Other than having a good breathing technique to avoid camera shake, here is another trick to boost your lens’ sharpness.

It’s pretty straight forward: do not shoot wide open.

Shooting wide open means taking photos with the widest possible aperture of the lens. To put it simply, if it’s a f3.5 lens, use aperture f4 or f5.6 and you will see a great improvement in sharpness. The reason is simple – for most of the lenses, they are not perfect. Their performance varies at different apertures and the sharpness at its widest aperture is definitely not the best.

IMG_4228 

This photo is most probably shot with the 450D kit lens, Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS, instead of trying to shoot at f4, I used a higher f-stop to bring out the best sharpness of the lens.

0 comments: